


A Broken Heart - a post-endgame ironkids oneshot

by ironmessTM



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 09:18:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18937987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmessTM/pseuds/ironmessTM
Summary: Peter had been holding everything away, keeping every locked up tight on the inside. He won't talk about where's been or what he's seen; he doesn't know how to.He's reeling.All his aunt wants, all we want, is to help him get better, right?We just want our little Petey-pie to be okay, right?Well, some things...some things are far easier said than done.And some things get worse, before they get better.Enjoy, guys, and please let me know what you think :-)This is my second one of these, but if you guys like them, then idk, maybe I'll write more of them, or even do a full fic and not just oneshots.Thank you!





	A Broken Heart - a post-endgame ironkids oneshot

***

“Peter?” May calls. “Peter?” she turns the corner into the small hallway of the apartment. “Peter, where are you, dinner is almost ready…” she opens the door of his room, and finds him standing by his window, a gentle breeze drifting in and making his hair sway back and forth. His swirling gaze, locked vacantly on the stars, makes it evident that he’s lost, wandering through the ruins of another lifetime. One he won’t open up to her about. She doesn’t know what happened, or what he’s seen, or even where he’s been, and she’s stopped asking, because every time she does it’s like she’s shooting him in the chest, and herself along with him. “How…how are you doing?” she asks, worry glistening in her eyes. Peter hasn’t slept or even really eaten in days, and he’s been spending as much time as possible away from home, either swinging through the city or spending hours and hours up at the cabin with Morgan. With a heavy heart, she’d given him a curfew, to keep him mostly home after dark and ease at least a little of her worrying; she doesn’t feel any better, though, because the sad, solemn nod he’d given her in response doesn’t seem entirely worth it anymore. Little does she know, that in the days spent reeling from this loss, Peter feels like he doesn’t know where home is, or how to find it again. He’s lost, blind and sinking underwater with no sense of direction. But he won’t admit to it. He will suffer in silence, until the blinding, numbing agony becomes a part of him, because he doesn’t see any other way out of this.

Because there’s no going back, and he doesn’t know which way is forward.

He opens his mouth to reply with something hollow and forced, that he’s ‘fine’, or that perhaps he’s ‘getting through it’, but in truth, he’s neither of those things, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever know how to be those things ever again. This is the third time that he’s lost a father, and so one would think that this time, it would hurt just a little less. That by now, he would know how to deal with it, how to move on quicker. That it would become old news to him, another stack of memories filed away, simply…another person…gone. 

However, if anything, knowing that he’s been subjected to this before, but that he still doesn’t know what to do about it…that only serves to torture him further. 

He’s about to form the empty words, but just before he can release them from where they lie on the tip of his tongue, he stops. He flinches, the metaphysical bottle in which he’s been holding everything away suddenly wrenching and straining under the strong, unabating weight of loss. Peter clutches his chest, looking away bitterly. Why can’t he just handle this? Why can’t…why can’t he move on, from this?

Does he…does he deserve this?

He feels something in him lurch, and almost click. He feels it, in his core, that he can’t do this anymore. He physically can’t. One moment stretches out into an eternity, and it’s as though he’s forgotten everything, except how good it would feel to let go, right about now. Surely that will bring him peace, right? Surely…surely he’ll find what he needs that way, right? He closes his eyes, and he takes a deep breath, and then he almost nods, only without nodding…but the meaning is clear; his permission is given. The end, to all this…it may begin.

He knows he’s in the endgame of all this now.

And then he’s falling to his knees in pain, as a rapid assault of sharp, brutal splinters of memories from throughout his life, memories from times of grief and suffering he never did truly deserve to be exposed to, explode and embed themselves mercilessly into his heart. All the pent-up emotion he’s ever harbored, every last ounce of loss and anger and sorrow he’s ever tried to keep hidden away comes surging up against his will, violently exerting itself upon him and tearing him to shreds from the inside out, leaving no sorrowful stone within his mind left unturned. May’s heart twists and contorts in her chest for him as she helplessly watches, entirely powerless to stop what she’s seeing, what she’s unable to look away from but wishes with every fiber of her being she could make better. The unceasing waves of grief, so strong she can feel them herself, slam into him, slowly carving him open as the awful sound of his gut-wrenching cries and the salty tang of his angst-ridden tears fill the thick, hazy fog of heartache that’s long since settled around him. His sobs echo through the room, reverberating and ricocheting against the thin walls and thundering along with the agonized beating of his broken, broken heart as he finally allows it to break.

He’s living in the angry, raging throes of chaos, of intense, rampant loss and emotion, but somehow, some small part of him feels as though this is right. Feels the albeit fleeting peace, that, at long last, each and every one of the burdens he's had to learn to live under is being lifted little by little, no longer needing to rest on his shoulders and his shoulders alone.  
He screams until he can’t anymore then cries out softly in anguish, his throat on fire like the rest of him, because he isn’t whole anymore, and he doesn’t know how to be whole anymore. Because a piece of his world is gone forever, and he doesn’t know how to rebuild it. Because just when he finally came home, and had his arms wrapped around the first person looked for, his father, the very same home that he had fought to protect, _died,_ to protect, was wrenched away; swiftly ripped out of his hands, leaving them empty and leaving him alone after only mere seconds of peace.  
Because just when he believed that things were going to be okay, he had a part of his heart torn right out of his chest, and he doesn’t know how to get it back.

And he can’t.

Because Anthony, Edward, Stark…is _dead_. 

And he isn’t coming back, because Peter can’t get him back. For all Peter knows, perhaps…perhaps some hearts are just destined to stay broken. Because…maybe, maybe not all broken things can be fixed. Whatever awaits him, be it eternal bitterness or a light at the end of the tunnel, all he knows is that he’s surrounded by darkness, and that he’s lost. With every heaving sob, a small piece of him dies, just like when he dusted away on Titan. He didn’t feel so good, then, and he doesn’t now either. Only, he doesn’t know where he’s going, this time. At least then, he didn’t have to live with it. Now...now that’s all he can do, is live with it.

May is down on her knees with him, and she places a hand on his shoulder. “Peter…” she says, her breathing ragged and her voice choked. She doesn’t know what to do; all she knows is how hard, how unbearably difficult it is for her to see him like this. “Peter, it’s going to be okay.” He looks up at her with eyes so, so vulnerable, reddened and strained from everything he’s had to endure, and so desperate for an answer, anything that will take the pain away. Anything at all.

“H-How…” he says slowly, his voice small and on the very brink of defeated. But something...somewhere inside, he’s still clinging onto that very last strand of hope, praying for the light of a way out to save him before he falls into the waiting chasm down below, ready to swallow him whole and never let go. “H-How do you know?” all he needs is something to trust, to pull him back. Tremors runs through every syllable as he speaks, but one thing is for sure; he’s begging. He is begging, because he needs to know that he doesn’t have nothing left. Because he is too far underwater to tell, anymore, too far away from happiness to remember the good things. All he knows, right now, is loss, but he needs to know that there’s more than that waiting for him on the other side of this.

“Oh, sweetie…I know it’ll be alright because time...time is like _magic_ , honey. It…it can heal anything.” He begins to deflate, on the verge of tipping over inside, but she cups his face in her hands and gives him no choice but to sit up and look straight at her. She yanks him back to her, to life, because she is as desperate as he is, now; maybe even more. “Peter…you just have to believe.” She insists, her eyes pleading. “Time can heal anything, it can, and it will, I _promise_ you. I _promise_ , okay?”

“Are…are you sure?” She holds him close, letting him melt into her loving arms. A single, silent tear runs down her cheek, because this is her child, and she couldn’t protect him. 

“I’m sure.” She whispers into the night, letting the dim light of the stars seeping in through the window blanket them in its soft glow.

“I’m sure, Peter.”

***


End file.
